


Map of the World

by westernredcedar



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Geography, M/M, Vignettes, over many years, the Gallagher shower curtain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:15:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26685010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westernredcedar/pseuds/westernredcedar
Summary: Ian Gallagher knows a lot of geography.
Relationships: Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich
Comments: 30
Kudos: 225





	Map of the World

**Author's Note:**

> Over the last several weeks I fell deep into all 10 seasons of Shameless and this little fic is my brain needing to process at least some of my thoughts. Also, I have the same world map shower curtain as the Gallaghers, and it just got me thinking.
> 
> This story lives at the intersection of Ian, Mickey, geography, and the Gallagher bathroom.

When Ian Gallagher was in fifth grade, he scored 100% on exactly one test the entire year, the one where he had to correctly label a map with the names of all fifty states. 

When his teacher, Mrs. Helmet, returned the tests, she didn’t smile or say _good work_ or _nice job_ as she handed the paper back to Ian. She lifted a penciled eyebrow at him and pursed her lips in a way that screamed _who did you cheat off of, Gallagher_ as clearly as if she’d said it aloud. Ian glanced around and shielded the page so that none of his classmates could see his score, and then folded the test into a small square and tucked it into his pocket.

That night, he tacked the paper to the wall above his bed, the red 100% circled at the top. Lip tried to grab it down when he saw it, which led to a tussle in which Lip gave him a painful noogie, called him a nerd, and somehow managed to make his earlobe bleed. But Lip had a whole drawer full of good test scores, so Ian kicked him in the shin, hard, and he let go.

“How’d you even know all of that? I never helped you study,” Lip said once they’d settled into their beds.

Ian shrugged. “Dunno. I just knew ‘em all.”

“That’s pretty fucking cool, bro.” 

In the dim light, Ian stared at his paper until he fell asleep. 

So he wasn’t brilliant, but he knew which state was which, and fuck Mrs. Helmet anyway. 

*

Ian had never really had many friends at school. People liked him fine, sure, and he kept his head down and his mouth shut; no attention was better than bad attention, and Ian had known for a long time that there were things about him that meant he needed to watch his back more than most. 

In eighth grade a new kid arrived who called himself Spike. He was loud and crass and made sure everyone knew who he was his first week: that he was from LA, and that Chicago was shit, and that he had four girlfriends. Even Lip, who was across the street at the high school by then, asked Ian about the new kid. “Heard he has a donkey dick,” Lip announced at breakfast after Spike had been around for a couple of weeks, “and he’s fucking his way through the neighborhood.”

Ian shook his head. “Nah. That kid is all talk.”

“Well if you’re in the locker room with this asshole, give a look for me, eh?” Lip grinned.  


Ian hoped the heat in his cheeks didn’t mean he was actually blushing.

He did have gym with Spike, and he had looked. Daily, actually.

Ian had paid attention so he knew all sorts of things, like that Spike’s real name was Roger, that he lived with his Jamaican grandma three blocks over, and that he talked about pussy constantly despite the fact that Ian had never once seen him speak to or approach a single girl. Ian also knew how far away LA was, could picture the long miles between, and that whatever had brought Roger Spikey so far, without his parents, in the middle of the school year, it was probably pretty crappy. 

More importantly, he knew Roger Spikey sometimes stared at him in the locker room too. He’d caught him at it a few times, big brown eyes darting away as soon as Ian looked back. 

It took a few weeks of that before Ian decided he could say something. He found Spike between classes, alone, smoking behind the art building. New kid.

“You wanna come over after school?” Ian sidled up and asked without preamble. He’d never talked to Spike before in his life, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t wrong.

Roger Spikey, who was always jawing about something, kept his mouth shut, looked Ian in the eye, and silently nodded. 

“Okay then, see ya,” Ian said, and he hoped Spike couldn’t hear the shake in his voice.

It was Ian who couldn’t stop talking on their walk to the Gallagher house, recounting neighborhood gossip about each place they passed and nervously looking over his shoulder every few minutes to make sure they were not drawing anyone’s attention. 

“You know everything, huh?” Roger Spikey finally said, when Ian paused for breath. 

“Nah.” Ian swallowed. He wished for a moment that he could tell Lip about any of this, get some advice about what to do next. Instead he heard himself saying, “But I can name all fifty states.”

Roger Spikey stopped walking and looked at Ian, brows drawn. “Bullshit.”

Ian looked back, suddenly acutely aware of his own skin, and how big Roger Spikey’s hands were.

“You catch me, and I’ll do it,” Ian said, trying not to vomit from sheer panic. He gave Spike one more look, and then took off down the block. After a moment he heard Spike yell, “What the hell,” and then heard the pound of his shoes on the pavement, following.

Ian dashed through his front yard to the back, Spike on his heels. He landed hard up against the old van and pulled open the side door just as Spike crashed against him, his body slamming into Ian and sending a firework of pain and sensation through his body. 

“You wanna hang in here?” Ian asked, breathless, his stomach churning, Spike still pressed up against him. “No one will know we’re out here.”

Spike stepped back, panting, and then crawled into the van and collapsed onto the old mattress inside, his body sprawled out. “Yeah, sure. Do the fucking states, though.”

“Uh, okay.” Ian swallowed hard and climbed in after him, pulling the door shut. “Hawaii, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho…” 

By Missouri, Ian had caught his breath, and by Maine, Roger Spikey’s hand was down Ian’s pants. Ian never did get to the last few states, since it made more sense by then to stop talking and pull Spike’s jeans off his hips to see what all the fuss was about. 

They were friends after that, Ian supposed. Spike sat with him at lunch sometimes, yelling gross, explicit tales of his girlfriends to anyone within earshot while their knees pressed together under the table. They shared cigarettes and handjobs in the spot behind the art building between classes. Spike brought old porn mags over, filled with beefy dudes with huge dicks, and they flipped through them and got hard together in the back of the van. Once they finally got their nerve up to try it, they blew each other every day after school for two weeks.

Spike wasn’t there one day in gym class, and then again the next. After a week, Ian lingered in the locker room until most of the class had cleared out and then tapped on Coach Sims’ door. 

“Roger Spikey? That new kid, right? Yeah, here we go. Withdrew. That’s all I know, Ian. Kids like that come and go.”

Ian saved his favorite pages from Spike’s porno rags and then ditched the rest in a dumpster two blocks over. In the shower, he stared at the map of the world and thought about where Spike might be now. Wondered where he was going himself.

*

At an assembly during Ian’s freshman year of high school, an impressively tall, retired army colonel with a chest full of medals took the podium and spoke eloquently of his tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, places so distant from Chicago that Ian could only picture them as colored shapes on the map.

Far from Chicago, halfway across the world. Ian’s heart raced at the thought of all that distance, so far away. 

He approached the colonel as the assembly let out, standing up straight and saluting, hoping he was doing it right.

“I’d like to sign up, sir.”

The colonel gave him a little nod and said, “At ease, young man.”

Ian let his arm fall to his side. 

“Breathe, son,” the colonel suggested. Ian let out the breath he didn’t notice he was holding. 

“I just really want to see the world, sir. And kick some ass.”

The colonel smiled at that, and laid a thick hand on Ian’s shoulder. “Junior ROTC is looking for enthusiastic young soldiers like you.”

There were some forms to fill out and he’d have to find some cash for the uniform. Luckily Debbie had been able to forge Frank’s signature since she was seven, and he thought he’d seen a sign in the window at the Kash and Grab looking for some part-time help. 

That afternoon, Ian sat at the public library computer for two hours searching endless images of the desert landscapes of the Middle East and trying to imagine himself as part of it all, as part of the world. 

He couldn’t really picture it, but it was exciting to try.

*

The first time Ian had more than a passing thought about Mickey Milkovich was later that same year in World Geography class. 

The seat behind Ian was usually empty. Mickey slunk in every few days, probably just enough to stay enrolled, lurking behind him, smelling like stale cigarettes and kicking at the back of Ian’s chair the whole time; he never even brought a notebook with him. 

It was a Thursday, so Ian was in his combat uniform ready for inspection at two o’clock. Cortez had given himself an even easier day than usual, handing out blank world maps and telling them to shut up and fill in the names of as many countries as they knew. Most of the class had spent about two minutes making a few guesses before phones were out and whispered conversation started. Ian kept his head down, hoping no one noticed he was still actually working on his map.

The kicking on the back of his chair grew more pointed than usual, and after a few brutal shakes Ian felt something bounce off the back of his head. Maybe a pencil? 

“Hey, soldier boy,” Mickey hissed through his teeth. “Move your fucking paper over.”

Ian glanced over his shoulder. He’d never really paid much attention to Mickey Milkovich before, not since their brief stint in little league together, except to stay out of his way. This was a freshman class, but Mickey was definitely not a freshman. He looked filthy and mean and his expression was pinched like he’d just swallowed something sour.

“I can’t read your fruity handwriting, you shit.”

Ian kept his eyes on his paper and considered how he could get out of whatever this was without getting the shit kicked out of him. Under his breath, Ian whispered, “What do you want to know?”

“What the fuck place did you just write? That doesn’t even look like a real word.”

“Croatia?”

“What the hell is that even? Fuck.”

Ian turned his head to the side, keeping an eye on Cortez grading papers at the front of the room. 

“Listen,” Ian whispered, “if you just copy me, you’ll get caught. I know a lot of this stuff.”

“Calm your tits, army. I know how to fucking cheat without getting caught.”

Ian slid his paper over so that Mickey could get a good look. He’d made it through all of North and South America and was now working his way across Europe. 

“Shit.”

Ian ignored the mutters and swears behind him, but kept his map out and visible to Mickey for the rest of the period. He snuck a peek at the desk behind him once; Mickey’s map had about twenty countries labeled in a cramped, uneven hand. He’d even included at least two that Ian quickly noted were wrong, and some creative misspellings. Smart.

When the bell rang, Mickey tapped Ian’s shoulder with his stub of a pencil. Ian looked around at him. Mickey pointed a finger in Ian’s face, his eyebrows sky high.

“You ever tell anyone I fucking put in effort on this shit, you’re dead.”

Ian swallowed and shook his head. “I won’t.”

Mickey’s face pinched back into a sour sneer. “Why the fuck do you know all that shit anyway?”

Ian’s brain rocketed through possible responses, still focused on self-preservation. “I just remember stuff,” he tried with a shrug.

“Jesus,” Mickey replied, sliding out of his seat. He knocked Ian hard in the back of the head as he loped by to turn in his paper on Cortez’s desk. “That’s fucking fruity.”

Ian sank down in his seat, relief flooding his body. 

He didn’t get to find out how Mickey Milkovich did on his map assignment. The seat behind Ian remained empty for the rest of the semester, and Ian didn’t think about him again for a long time.

*

The morning after Kash finally let him all the way in, Ian stood in the shower and stared at Pakistan. 

Kash was born in Evanston, but during their long flirtation over the past months he’d told Ian all about his family, how they’d left everything behind in Peshawar to come to the United States a few years before Kash was born, how they’d started with nothing. Ian guessed by Kash’s sad eyes when he talked about them that he was a disappointment, probably just for marrying Linda, never mind if they ever found out Kash was screwing around with him. 

Ian was aware that sometime in the past his own family had come over from Ireland, long ago and far away, definitely in black and white. What were the chances, with those origins, that two people would even know each other, much less fuck in the storage closet of a convenience store in the middle of Chicago. A tremor of memory, shame, and exhilaration shuddered through Ian’s body. 

He stayed under the hot water until the skin on his chest was lobster red and Fiona was pounding on the door. 

*

Mickey Milkovich came barreling back into Ian’s life a year later, a wild mix of violence and need that came up out of the earth and hit Ian like an avalanche. 

He thought back to those early days with Kash and how melancholy it had been between them, even at the best of times. Nothing had ever been quite right, even Kash’s smell, all body spray and air freshener, like pretending. When Ian started seeing Ned regularly, later, he wasn’t any better, cologne and designer shampoo disguising everything.

Mickey smelled like old cigarettes and body odor and filth. He smelled like something real. 

*

They didn’t get much time together that wasn’t at work or outdoors. It was a nomadic, homeless kind of relationship most of the time.

After a late morning shower one Saturday, Ian returned to his room to find that Liam and Carl were gone and that Mickey had snuck through the window at some point and crashed out in Ian’s bed. His eyes were closed and face soft and relaxed against the pillow. Ian felt himself stare a moment too long; he’d get his ass kicked if Mickey caught him. Instead, he closed the door, dropped his towel, and crawled in on top, raining kisses onto Mickey’s shoulders and neck.

“I’m clean,” he whispered into Mickey’s ear.

Mickey, eyes still closed, smirked just enough to get Ian’s dick interested. He muttered, “Well that’s a shame, Gallagher, cause I’m fucking _dirty_.” 

Ian was flooded with the familiar rush of danger and hunger that Mickey brought out in him. Mickey locked one leg around his thighs and flipped him onto his back, grinding against his hips and smothering him in an open-mouthed, filthy kiss. Kissing was new for them, and apparently Mickey was fucking _ravenous_.

Ian tried to gain some control, pulling Mickey’s shirt off and groping at his ass to tug his jeans and boxers down and feel more skin against his own. This hadn’t been exactly what he was thinking about in the shower, but he wasn’t complaining. 

After a minute, Mickey’s mouth drifted south onto Ian’s chest and belly, his grody half-beard tickling against his skin, and Ian laughed and tried not to impulsively knee Mickey in the groin.

“Hey, your family is from Ukraine, right?” 

“My family is from fucking Chicago, asshole,” Mickey replied, rolling up onto Ian’s chest and biting at his nipple.

“You know what I mean, Mikhailo.” Ian grinned and shoved Mickey’s head back, which only made Mickey lunge forward and kiss him hard and dirty on the mouth. 

“Don’t call me that, you shit.”

“What, your name?”

“Fuck you.”

“Was it your grandparents? Your mom’s family? Who came over?” Ian asked, ignoring Mickey’s glare and letting his hands wander down the skin of Mickey’s lower back. 

Mickey’s gaze darkened and his voice lowered, right in Ian's face. “Listen, you dumb fuck. My hand is around your dick, my thumb is currently working your slit, and your fingers are about to be up my ass. You are not seriously talking about my mother right now.” Mickey raised his eyebrows to the sky and gave Ian a firm pull. 

Ian bit his lip.

“Shut the fuck up and get this thing going.” Mickey leaned in and sucked hard enough on Ian's shoulder that it would leave a mark. 

Ian didn’t argue, just flipped Mickey onto his back and hauled his legs up onto his shoulders. 

“That’s more like it, Gallagher.”

Pounding Mickey’s ass definitely curbed Ian’s interest in ancestry for a moment.

Eventually, they collapsed onto each other, sweaty and stuck together. Ian tried to catch his breath as the storm rattled over him again. He was going to have to take another shower, and the hot water was probably gone.

Mickey heaved himself up and out of the bed a few minutes later, grabbing a pack of smokes out of his discarded jeans and pulling on Ian’s shirt from the floor. Ian watched him. He couldn’t look away.

“It was my dad’s fucking grandpa or some shit.” As he lit up, he added, “But she was from Kiev.” 

Mickey didn’t look at Ian at all as he spoke.

“Huh?.” Ian was afraid to say anything else. He pulled himself up to sit against the headboard. 

“Ukraine.”

“Your mom?”

“Yeah, genius. My mom.” 

“You never talk about her.”

Mickey took a long pull on his cigarette, looking at the carpet. “She’s dead. So no, I don’t. Not like you ever fucking talk about your mom.”

Ian shrugged. He had no interest in thinking about Monica right now. “Well, she’s not dead. So.”

Mickey rolled his eyes and took a seat next to Ian on the edge of the bed. Ian grabbed the cigarette dangling from his fingers and took a drag, mostly to have an excuse to touch Mickey’s fingers.

“Think you’d ever want to visit?” Ian asked. He’d been wondering about it in the shower.

“What, Ukraine?”

Ian shrugged. “See where you come from?”

“I come from here, you fruit. Why, you thinking you’d ever want to return to your fucking home planet?”

Ian paused. “What does that mean?”

Mickey snatched the cigarette back from Ian and took a drag. “Never mind, ET,” he muttered to the wall, head wreathed in smoke. 

Ian grinned. “Seriously, Mick. Don’t you want to get out there? Into the world?”

Mickey was unexpectedly still for a moment and he said, almost too quiet for Ian to hear, “How the fuck am I ever gonna do that?” 

Ian didn’t have an answer, and after a short silence Mickey stubbed out the cigarette on Ian’s night table and jumped back on him for round two. 

But Ian still wondered.

*

Ian never could fully piece together exactly what his plan had been in commandeering a helicopter, even though it had made perfect sense to him at the time. The only thing he was sure of was that his first stop was going to be getting back to Mickey and then after that they’d be fucking flying, and who could stop them? Ukraine. Afghanistan. Ireland. Anywhere in the world.

*

The world closed in on him after that.

His new map was an internal landscape of highs and lows, and unlike the world, no one had left a copy around for Ian to learn from while he brushed his teeth every night. He’d been dropped into this enemy territory with no compass, no weapons. He couldn’t even count on his squad to have his back, not Lip, not Fiona, not even his mother; they didn’t have a map either.

There was a moment, outside the Alibi, blood-caked and aching, when he thought he’d found a road out, Mickey holding his hand and walking alongside him. But it turned out there was no easy route for them in this wilderness, and eventually, even Mickey was lost to him.

Ian's eyes lingered on Illinois in the shower most mornings. He didn’t want to go anywhere else anymore.

*

When Mickey found him again, after so many years between, the avalanche hit just as hard as it ever did. 

They drove through the vast open spaces between Chicago and the Rio Grande, flying away from everything; Ian’s mind kept picturing the little map he’d tacked to his wall all those years ago with the 100% at the top; the length of Illinois, then Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Mexico.

“I can name all fifty states,” Ian said, glancing over at Mickey in the passenger seat, at his favorite face. 

Mickey smiled a little. “I know that, you idiot.”

Ian’s heart skipped a little at that announcement. “You do?”

“You were always a fucking nerd about maps and shit. Remember Cortez?”

“You remember that?”

“Shit yes. Of course. Last decent grade I ever got.”

Ian felt himself smiling and when he looked over, he caught Mickey staring at him with a little grin hovering around his lips. 

“I never stopped, you know. All these years,” Mickey said, real quiet.

Ian wasn’t sure he could really believe that Mickey could really feel that way about him, but he tried. “Me either.” He meant it.

When they found a secluded place to pull off for a break, Mickey’s skin under Ian’s fingertips felt like a map of his life, full of memory.

*

He wanted to know.

At the sink one morning, a few weeks after having to say goodbye to Mickey at the border, staring for the thousandth time at the countries of Central America, the question kept bubbling up into Ian’s brain. 

Fiona blasted into the bathroom behind him with a pile of clean towels.

“Hey.”

“Hey, yourself,” Fiona replied. Ian had hardly seen her for weeks; she was fucking some new bad idea.

He continued to stare at Mexico, suddenly curious. “Why do we even have this?” Ian asked her, talking around his toothbrush.

“Have what?” Fiona hadn’t even looked up. 

“This.” Ian kicked at their shower curtain with his toe. 

Fiona paused her frenzied housekeeping mode for a moment and cocked her head. “What, the shower curtain? Does it matter?”

Ian considered. “Probably not.”

Fiona folded her arms and looked hard at the shower curtain for a moment. “Dunno. We just always have. What’s up?”

Ian shook his head. “Just thinking about something.”

Fiona raised her eyebrows. “Hm. Suppose if you actually give a shit, you could ask Frank.”

Ian found Frank at the Alibi later, obviously flush with some new source of cash and swinging a tumbler of Jameson around. 

“The world map,” Frank laughed, slamming his drink down on the bar. “You know, son, I haven’t thought about that for years.” 

“Not your son,” Ian muttered under his breath. If Frank heard, he chose to ignore it.

Frank paused and took a long swig of his whiskey, his expression wistful. “That was Monica’s idea. She wanted all you kids to dream big, your mother. Loved you so damn much. Thought seeing the world every day might inspire you.”

Ian was caught off guard; he’d still not really let himself believe his mother was gone. A lump formed in his throat. “Monica?” was all he could manage to say.

Frank looked over at him with some sort of expression that Ian couldn’t remember seeing on his face before. “Did it work?” 

Ian stared down at his hands on the old, sticky wood of the bar. 

“Maybe it did,” he said.

*

Mickey Milkovich’s parole ended on a rainy Tuesday. A long time before, Mickey had told Ian that what they had together made them free, but they hadn’t been actually free forever, not really.

Mickey didn’t want any kind of celebration; too much baggage from his father’s frequent homecomings. After his shift, Ian made dinner for the two of them and they ate in front of the television and didn’t talk about it. 

Ian cleared the plates away, his heart hammering. “I’ll be right back,” he said to Mickey, who gave him a worried glare. 

“I said no fucking party,” Mickey called out as Ian trotted to the bedroom. 

Ian had been saving cash in an old canister under his side of the bed for two years. There was over a thousand dollars inside. 

He walked back out to Mickey, sitting up at high attention on the sofa, and handed him the canister. Mickey looked at him with that old pinched, sour expression that had once scared Ian, but that he now knew meant Mickey just needed something. Needed him. 

“What the fuck is this?” 

Ian settled in next to Mickey, pressing against his side and gaining confidence with the touch. “From me.”

Mickey peeled up the lid of the canister. His eyes went huge. “Holy shit, Gallagher.”

Ian pictured the map of the world, the lines and curves and colored blocks. He reached over and laced his fingers through Mickey’s. 

“Where should we go?  


*


End file.
